beemerdons
Certifiable Old Fart
Shit happens, if it wasn't for Bad Luck...I wouldn't have any Damn Luck at all! From my very best riding Buddy, Brian Boles:
I met Don this morning over at Chester's Harley. We rolled off towards the north and stopped at Carefree Chevron. No one else was stupid enough to go for a ride today. We decided to do the Camp Verde / Payson loop. The riding was great all of the way up to Payson. Nice and cool once up on 260. Having a great day.
Then in Payson, things started to go south. At the roundabouts on the north side of town, first a guy cut across in front of Don, then at the next one, the guy in the right lane didn't see me and tried to go straight across. I laid horn on him and woke him up.
We were going to stop for lunch on the south side of Payson. At the downtown stop light, it started to change just as I approached it. So one of those split second decisions, I decided to do a quick stop as to not lose Don behind the light. Yes, a K1600GTL quick stop. In retrospect, probably a bad decision, Sorry Don. Turns out that a Harley cannot stop like a K1600GTL. I heard the tire squealing just after I hit my brakes and looked to the rear to see Don coming up with all wheels locked up but not slowing enough. I think the many greasy tar snakes didn't help matters.
Don skidded up on my left hand side. The right wheel of the trike went under my left saddlebag. It lifted the rear of my bike off of the ground and then dumped me down on my right side. The drag on the left of the trike made it slew to the right and then roll to the left. It pitched Don off to his left and he landed on what was (hopefully still is) his good left shoulder. The trike continued to roll until it came to rest up side down.
It must have looked very spectacular to the other folks on the highway, because the 911 calls reported seriously injured riders. Don and I aren't ATGATT riders, but we had enough to walk away unscathed. Within a few minutes, 4 police cars, 2 sheriff deputies, 2 ambulances, 1 fire truck and 3 tow trucks responded to the accident. In the meantime we uprighted the rides, and pushed them over into the shade at a gas station.
An hour of so of paperwork and photographs etc followed. After we got cut loose we took a nice easy ride back home for me and back to Chester's for Don. Gonna be a pricey stop for Don.
Thank goodness that we are both OK.
